


[Fic + Podfic] Patient: 8177-4535, Date of Visit: 23/11/2010

by BrandonStrayne



Series: Eros Department [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Curses, Established Relationship, Facebook: The Pen15 is Mightier, Humor, M/M, Medical, Minor Original Character(s), Original Character(s), Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Available, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-10-26 08:03:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20738930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrandonStrayne/pseuds/BrandonStrayne
Summary: Written for the Pen15 is Mightier 2019 Gift Exchange. I really hope you like it,the_crown_jules! :DMuch thanks to my palsOllieMaye,Drarryismymuse, andKeep_Calm_and_Expecto_Patronumfor the beta.





	1. Fic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_crown_jules](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_crown_jules/gifts).

> Written for the Pen15 is Mightier 2019 Gift Exchange. I really hope you like it, [the_crown_jules](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_crown_jules)! :D
> 
> Much thanks to my pals [OllieMaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/olliemaye), [Drarryismymuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hatchersn/pseuds/Drarryismymuse), and [Keep_Calm_and_Expecto_Patronum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keep_calm_and_expecto_patronum) for the beta.

John cursed to himself as he stepped into an unforeseen puddle and felt the cold water begin to seep in through the decorative holes in the leather of his brogues. Shaking his leg out, John shot a frustrated look at the retreating back of the man he’d been following.

“Oi! Will you bloody well slow down?” he shouted at the other man, who didn’t show any signs of having heard him, though John knew without a doubt that he had. The momentary flare of frustration dwindled as his eyes snagged on the pert, receding arse of his roommate, friend and, most recently, lover. Well, technically all that John could see was the smooth lines of the fashionably cut, long wool coat that he was wearing, but fortunately for him, his imagination had become much more robust since he had found his flatmate.

“No time to lose, my dear Watson,” Sherlock called back over his shoulder without turning around. John jogged to catch up with the longer strides of the other man. What he really wanted was for those long legs to be wrapped around him again.

“Tell me again why we left the warm cosiness of your bed to trod through the rain to a...” John craned his head back to look at the sign painted on the red-brick wall of the dilapidated department store they were standing in front of, “Purge & Dowse, Ltd. Whatever that is.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sherlock asked in that imperious tone which made it quite clear that the only answer he would find acceptable to that question was one in the affirmative.

“Are you in need of a new scarf, perhaps?” John asked with the sole intention of riling the excitable genius up.

Sherlock rewarded him with a scathing look before turning his attention back to the large glass display window. “Don’t you find the display window odd?” Sherlock asked.

John’s brows drew together as he studied the window. Owing to the evident abandonment of the building, John didn’t think there was anything particularly strange about the dummies wearing clothes that looked like they would have been the height of fashion in the eighties. When John looked over, Sherlock was studying him with an expectant look. “Enlighten me.”

Sherlock turned and walked down the street along the front of the department store, running one finger along the _Closed for Refurbishment_ sign on the door as he spoke. “I was visiting that small jewellery shop several blocks from here where you said you bought that watch of yours when I encountered two rather strange individuals.”

Sherlock gestured at the vintage watch fastened around John’s wrist, the crystal glass face and brown leather wrist strap just barely peeking out from under the elastic cuff of his jacket. “What do you mean they were ‘strange’?” John asked, that old adage about people in glass houses not throwing stones running through his mind.

“Well, for one thing, they were dressed as superheroes,” Sherlock stated flatly. “But what was really interesting was what they were saying. One of them mentioned needing to get back to the ministry, but that he would stop in at St Mungo’s before heading there to check on the patient.” When John just continued to stare blankly at him, Sherlock threw his arms up in exasperation. “There’s no St Mungo’s hospital in London.”

John merely shrugged at this revelation and Sherlock clucked his tongue in disappointment before looping his arm through John’s and steering him back toward the window they’d inspected earlier. Sherlock turned him to face the window and stood behind him, resting his hands on the shorter man’s shoulders. This was more like it. John shifted back so their bodies were pressed together.

“Focus!” Sherlock chastised, taking a step back to reinstate the thin stretch of empty air between them. “I followed them back here and—”

“How many times have I told you to stop following strangers? It’s creepy!” John sighed.

“I followed them back here and watched from that corner over there,” Sherlock said as he lifted his left arm and pointed to the corner past the doors of the store that they’d just walked by, “as the man disappeared through this window.” Sherlock swung his arm around, resting it on John’s shoulder as he pointed squarely at the dummy in the window.

John stared down the long stretch of Sherlock’s arm and frowned at the dummy, which had a matted brown wig sitting askew on its expressionless head. “You’re telling me that someone disappeared into thin air through this window?” John asked.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied, circling around John to step closer to the windowpane which was reflecting the murky, overcast sky.

“Just...gone?” John asked.

“Yes.”

“Poof...no longer there?”

“Yes.”

“Are you feeling alright?” John asked, concerned that his partner’s sanity had finally cracked.

“Yes, quite well, actually,” Sherlock answered, nonplussed. “What do you notice about this window?”

Sighing, John turned his attention back to the window and inspected it, trying to see it through Sherlock’s hyper-observant lens. “The wig’s crooked,” he offered lamely.

“Indeed. Is that all?” Sherlock watched him expectantly, his intense eyes boring into him.

John took a few steps back from the window and inspected the whole thing, the reflection of dark clouds a sure sign that heavier rain was on the horizon. A furrow formed between his brows as a thought occurred to him. “Why’s the glass so clean?”

“Very good,” Sherlock congratulated him. “The rest of this store gives off a derelict look as if nobody’s checked in on the property for decades, so why is this window so clean?”

“And how could a prime piece of London real estate sit abandoned for this long?” John wondered as he cast a gaze down the street a few blocks to where a bustling street of traffic could be seen.

“Precisely. A property of this size could fetch north of £25 million, yet judging by the clothes on these dummies, it has sat vacant since at least 1985; the tube top and faux-fur jacket place us firmly in the 80s, but the knee-length, flowing skirt as opposed to a spandex mini-skirt, paired with the ever-present PVC shoes, or ‘Jellies’, root us firmly in the first half of the decade.” Sherlock cast the faded, blue plastic shoes a disgusted look. “It seems highly unlikely that anyone would forego so many years of profit.”

“Maybe they’re just...having trouble finding a good estate agent?” John joked dryly.

Sherlock ignored him. “So that tells us that someone maintains this one section of the building, but why? What’s different about it?” Sherlock cast his eyes down to the wooden floor of the display. “Scuff marks.” He darted to inspect the base of the other two dummies before returning back to the central dummy. “There are scuff marks here, at the base of this one, but not at the others. This one is shifted quite regularly.”

“It’s probably just kids. Mischief,” John offered, spending more effort studying the man in front of him than the puzzle of the display window. John had been with Sherlock for so long now that he thought he could read the minuscule twitches of the other man’s mouth. Of course, most of the time what he read there was frustration that nobody could keep up with his racing mind.

“No, the state of the glass is too pristine, no broken panes. No, there’s something else going on here.” Sherlock’s eyes dropped down to the extended hand of the mannequin, palm up and jointed fingers curled almost invitingly.

“Well, then how do you suppose they’re getting in? That padlock on the door was pretty rusted. I doubt it would open even if they had the key.” John nodded towards the large front door that was shut up tight with a large lock and a length of thick metal chain.

“I think it’s less a matter of ‘getting in’ and more a matter of being invited,” Sherlock said cryptically, eyes adhered to the beckoning plastic hand.

“Right. Well,” John turned towards the inanimate dummy, “those are very stylish shoes you have there.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Sherlock barked. “Have you forgotten already that it’s supposed to be a hospital?”

“I’m the one being absurd? Me?” John threw his arms in the air. “I’m not the one that pulled us out of bed to stand in front of some dodgy old department store to talk to a dummy! What are we even here for, anyway?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We’re here for you,” Sherlock stated.

“For me? And what would I need from a ratty old department store?” John asked, exasperated.

“Do you know how many times you’ve tried to initiate amorous activities in the last week?” Sherlock asked. John stood staring, thrown off by the unexpected change of topic. “Twenty-seven times. Did you know that 67% of men in homosexual relationships report having sex seven times a month, which averages to about 1.62 times a week? So wouldn’t you say that twenty-seven times is a statistical anomaly?”

“I...well...is that a problem?” John shot back, embarrassed and discomfited. True, he had been feeling slightly more...randy, the last little while, but he hardly saw why that was cause for medical intervention. Even now, he was tempted to throw Sherlock against that glass and stop his racing mouth with a kiss.

“You’re thinking about it right now,” Sherlock accused.

“I am not!” John lied, irked that the other man could always read him like a book.

“Yes, you were,” Sherlock insisted. “If I had to guess, you were contemplating the merits of throwing me back against this window and attempting to distract me from this endeavour with carnal distractions.”

“Actually, if you must know, I was trying to remember if I left the hob on at home,” John lied, unwilling to let Sherlock know he was, as usual, completely right.

Sherlock scoffed, but he didn’t pursue the matter. “Anyway, twenty-seven times is a large spike in our amorous activities frequency and it corresponded exactly with your new timepiece purchase, so I got suspicious and decided to investigate.”

“So...what? You think my watch is somehow making me randy?” John asked, laughing lightly at the absurdity.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Sherlock confirmed.

“And how would it be doing that, exactly? Is it cursed?” John paired the absurd suggestion with a spooky sound.

To his surprise, Sherlock merely replied, “Now you’re catching up,” as if the idea of a cursed timepiece was something he encountered every day.

“Are you pulling my leg?” John looked around as if searching for hidden cameras. He was used to feeling like he was always stumbling behind after Sherlock, but this might just be the most absurd theory Sherlock had ever had. “You’re not seriously suggesting my watch has some sort of magical curse on it?”

“At first I thought it might be some sort of topical analgesic, but when I swabbed and analyzed the watch, all the lab tests came back negative, which was why I decided to investigate the shop itself. When I witnessed the man disappear through this window here, I was forced to formulate a new theory.”

“But Sherlock…” John couldn’t believe he was actually having to say this, “magic isn’t real.”

“I didn’t think so either, but when faced with the facts, I had to adjust my understanding of the world to accommodate the possibility,” Sherlock explained.

“And that doesn’t sound crazy to you?” John asked, concern for his friend rising.

Sherlock turned a quizzical look to him. “Isn’t blindly ignoring facts the truly crazy thing to do?” Turning his attention back to the window, he leaned close and began murmuring softly, below John’s hearing, to the shop dummy.

John was just trying to decide what he should do next when a shifting movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention and he turned to see the dummy’s articulated plastic finger curl in towards its palm.

“Ah! Found it!” Sherlock cried in victory before grabbing hold of John’s arm and pulling him toward the window.

John didn’t have time to protest and before he knew it, rather than crashing into the shop window, somehow he and Sherlock had travelled _through_ it and were now standing in a crowded reception area. People in matching outfits of violently lime-green robes were bustling about and ushering people in and out of the room.

They stood there in the middle of the floor, taking everything in for long moments. John could feel that his mouth hung agape in shock as he took in the various patients: one woman wearing black robes had an engorged hand that seemed to be filled with helium as it continually floated up above her head; another man seemed unable to stop dancing, standing between two rows of wooden chairs and dancing the macarena to no music at all; and yet another man appeared to have a beak of some kind and kept coughing up feathers as John watched.

Even Sherlock looked shocked. As much as Sherlock ever looked shocked, meaning that one sharp eyebrow was raised as he took in the chaotic bustle of the room. Spotting the reception desk, he strode forward and John stumbled along behind him, Sherlock’s grip still firm on his jacket.

“Good afternoon, my friend here needs medical attention,” Sherlock greeted the harried-looking woman at the desk who didn’t even look up from the pile of—were those parchments?—on her desk.

“Fill this out,” the woman demanded, passing them a roll of rolled-up parchment, which Sherlock rolled open and scanned quickly.

“Ah, well you see, I won’t be able to fill this out,” he said.

“And why’s that?” the woman snapped, finally looking up at them, the neon colour of her robes clashing badly with her complexion to make her look peaky.

“I can’t fill out this section about wands,” Sherlock explained.

“And why’s that?” the woman asked, beginning to look thoroughly annoyed and not at all charmed by Sherlock’s personality.

“We don’t own wands, you see.” The annoyance melted off her face, replaced with surprise and then quickly followed by fear.

A flash of green light went off to his right and John turned to see a woman step out of a tall fireplace, a fine green mist floating in the air as she wiped off her clothes.

“You’re...Muggles?” the woman asked, stuttering. When Sherlock and John showed no recognition at the word, she elaborated, “Non-magical folk.”

“Ah, then yes,” Sherlock agreed.

***

“Fascinating! And how did you see past the glamour on the building?” the red-headed middle-aged man from the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects asked. He had been interrogating Sherlock for more than an hour, but ‘interrogation’ wasn’t exactly the right word for it. The man seemed more impressed by the Muggle that had deduced the existence of the magical world through sheer observation than suspicious of him.

John sat there in the hospital robe that they’d provided and pinched himself every few minutes to test whether this was all some sort of elaborate dream, but alas, it still seemed to be real. After they had established themselves as Muggles, it had caused quite the eruption of activity and they had been swiftly rushed off to a secluded ward of the hospital for inspection and questioning. Sherlock had shared his suspicions about John’s watch and, much to John’s surprise, the doctors—witches and wizards, apparently—had inspected the watch and had, indeed, found a curse on it. Apparently they had been investigating a rash of objects which had been embedded with counterfeit protective spells that had made their way to a Muggle jewellery shop. The jewellery shop where John had purchased his new watch a week ago.

They had proceeded to run a number of diagnostic spells on John to make sure there wasn’t going to be any long-term effects of the curse, and now he was just waiting for the results.

“Good news, Mr Watson. The residual magic should wear off in a few days and you’ll be right as rain,” the jovial Healer Twycross said as he hustled back into the room. “I must say, this is quite exciting!”

“My being cursed is exciting, is it?” John asked aggressively, offended by the man’s evident glee at the situation.

“Well, yes. It’s not every day that we get Muggles walking in the front doors of St Mungo’s!” the healer nodded, a wide grin on his face. “Oh, hello Arthur! I didn’t see you there!” The Healer walked over and clamped a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “How’s Molly, then?”

“She’s wonderful, as always,” Arthur beamed, love oozing out of every pore of his face. “She was just saying the other day that we need to have you and Wilkie over for dinner one of these days.”

“That would be lovely. Just let me know the day and we’ll be there. It’s been far too long since I’ve had a taste of her famous corned beef pie!”

Arthur nodded and turned back to Sherlock. “Mr Holmes, it has been a pleasure meeting you. You are a most fascinating man.”

“So that’s it? We can go now?” John asked hopefully. He was having a much harder time reconciling the presence of a whole hidden world than Sherlock was.

“I imagine they will need to wipe our memories first,” Sherlock stated.

Arthur looked surprised but nodded. “How did you know we’d need to Obliviate you?”

“The existence of witches and wizards is relegated to silly costumes and fiction stories, and I doubt that was achieved through sheer luck and thousands of people being excellent at keeping a secret,” Sherlock pointed out. “Though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find the idea of you rifling around in my mind...upsetting.”

Arthur nodded but pulled out his wand anyway. “I understand your concern, but I’m sure you understand why I have to do this. I promise that in a few minutes, it’ll be like this never happened.”

***

“I think we must have taken a wrong turn,” John said, spinning around on the spot and looking up and down the quiet street in both directions. “I don’t see why we couldn’t just have our tea at home like usual,” he muttered.

“There’s something...odd about this mannequin,” Sherlock said, staring intently at a chipped mannequin with a hideous outfit and a knotty, haphazard wig.

“Unless that dummy has a tray of biscuits and a steaming cuppa shoved under her skirt, I really couldn’t care less,” John declared.

Sherlock cast a final suspicious glance at the mannequin before turning away, looping his arm through John’s and tugging him down the street towards the bustle of traffic. “You’re always so cranky if you don’t get your tea on time.”


	2. Podfic

### Download

Title | Length | Size | Format  
---|---|---|---  
[Patient: 8177-4535, Date of Visit: 23/11/2010](https://www.dropbox.com/s/z6q7zpgn67hfb6c/BrandonStrayne%20-%20Eros%20Department%204.mp3?dl=0) | 16:36 | 11.2 MB | MP3


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